1.9.11

An Unending Darkness

Yes, this is a complaint post - thanks to my BFF Irene, there's no power at the Lazyhouse. None. And there's no clue from my utility (NYSEG, in case you want to call and complain on my behalf) when it'll be restored.

I'm not an unreasonable person, really. I understand the difficulties evaluating the extent of the damage, and repairing lines, etc.. What I don't understand is how this utility (essentially a monopoly under NYS rules about territories) can be so lacking in the communication department.

For the first 24-26 hours, nothing was posted about my street and its status.

Then we moved to "Assessing".

Then the website indicated that our power would be restored by noon, Wednesday.

And by six pm Tuesday the street had been removed from their site.

Except... no power.
So I called them, only to get an automated message saying that power had been restored at 5:23pm that night.

Uh, no. Not really. Trust me, I can tell the difference between "power" and "no power".

And it wasn't just me, it was every one of my neighbors.

Another call, this time to complain that the communication and information was erroneous. Result? We're back on the list of streets missing power. But unlike virtually every other street in our town, we're neither "assessing" nor being assigned a restoration time/date.

One of my neighbors said that his homeowners policy has a $500 deductible for these things, and there's no way he'd lost $500 worth of food - and he has two 20-something children living in the house. Me? The Herd's food is fine. And there's no way I had $500 worth of food in my fridge/freezer. So, no luck there.

But I've had well over $500 loss in terms of inability to do work (although I am reading up a storm, pardon the pun), inconvenience and general irritation. Can't recoup that, can I? And NYSEG's spokespeople? So understanding (oddly, they've all been through a similar outage, so they do know what I'm going through).

1 comment:

It sounds like what's been going on in CT. with CL&P. I know (from inside sources) that CL&P is not working around the clock to restore power, and does not plan to restore power fully within the next couple of weeks, despite what they're saying in the news. They don't want to pay their workers overtime, and are making them go home even though the workers want to stay and get the job done. Like your power company employees, some of CL&P's workers are also without power. Perhaps the companies are trying to appear aboveboard by doing so. For my part, I'm so mad on behalf of those without power that I could spit.

Sorry you're one of those people, if in another state. It's ridiculous!